Many of our clients are looking for ways to stretch their dollars to get the most out of a tighter budget. Reducing paper waste and filing space is a good, solid, wise place to start. Improving the efficiency of your organization and helping the environment at the same time is a win-win. However if the term 'going paperless' makes you nervous, it shouldn't.

You can start small by implementing paperless concepts such as requesting invoices via email, paying bills online, and developing a process that enables management to make approvals electronically. Then, when you’re ready you can implement paperless software which will help you achieve significant results.

When you consider the amount of money your company spends on paper, envelopes, postage, toner and manual processes...a paperless office sounds better and better. Research on the paper-based office yielded the following statistics regarding costs to your bottom line:

- Average labor costs spent by organizations to:

1. File a document¹: $20
2. Manually process an invoice – from start to finish²: $24
3. Find a misfiled document¹: $120
4. Reproduce a lost document¹: $220

- Time spent by employees¹:

1. Reading information: 5-15%
2. Looking for information: 50%
3. …Costs to the environment:
   • If US businesses were to reduce their paper usage by 10% it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.6 million tons³.
   • The average worker uses over 10,000 sheets of paper per year, equivalent to a tree per person⁴.
   • Estimates show that over a billion copies are made in the US each day⁵.

Benefits of Going Paperless

Cost savings aside, going paperless has numerous other benefits which will help you streamline your processes and better manage your company. Some of these include:

• Automated Workflow - Paperless software contains features that track documents received, sign offs and due dates, and allows users to attach supporting documents to transactions.
• Improved Efficiency - Employees can utilize Adobe and Microsoft software to make edits and notes on documents right on their computer, instead of on a printed version.
• Reduced Hassle. - Employees will no longer have to print, file, and search for documents – but will be able to easily find them within your software program. Not to mention – you’ll no longer need to store copies in filing cabinets, or use valuable space in your office for storage.

Creating a paperless office is a great way to streamline your processes and improve your bottom line – all while feeling good about helping the environment! If this sounds interesting to you, and you’d like to learn more – stay tuned for our April webinars on Manage the Process…NOT the Paper.

1PricewaterhouseCoopers
2 IOMA
3 Environmental Paper Network
4 Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
5 U.S. Department of Labor